Ditto!
by Quill of Molliemon
Summary: AU, crossover, three-shot; follows "Soothe the Savage". Naruto reaches Shinobi Town where his first gym awaits. But will he triumph or fail? ...And what the heck is the gym leader reading!
1. Part I

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto or Pokémon. If I did, I'd have a lot of money…but I don't. So don't bother suing, you won't get anything out of it.

**Notes:** (Crossover, could be a crack!fic if you want) Here there be Naruto characters and Pokémon monsters! This is a _three-part short_ which follows "Soothe the Savage".

I hope that you enjoy it!

* * *

**Ditto!**_  
Part I_

Naruto sighed in relief as he crested the small hill where the trees opened up to reveal a town about double the size of Konoha Town. This was Shinobi Town, a place supposedly named after a fictional type of ninja…or something. It had a pokémon gym; that was all that mattered to the young Uzumaki who stared upon it.

"Made it," he groaned and hiked his pack higher on his shoulders. This dislodged Bolt the pichu, who had been napping on top of the bag, and sent him tumbling over the blonde boy's shoulder and into his arms with a squeak. "Oh, sorry."

Helping the little yellow mouse back onto his shoulder, he sucked in a deep breath and marched down into town. His first stop would be to the local pokémon center where he could get cheap food and get his three little beasties treatment. And then, after resting his feet a bit, he'd scope out his first gym.

It took some aimless wandering, but he found the pokémon center. The bright red roof and giant sign was a dead giveaway. And after stepping inside, the nurse uniforms and chansey helpers only confirmed it.

Pokémon centers were the most important buildings to trainers. They offered free beds for the night, cheap food, and medical care for any pokémon that needed it. Without such centers, the trainer culture would collapse.

After getting his three minions refreshed at the counter, he headed for the bank of pay video phones to make a call.

"Hi Mom!" Naruto grinned as the black screen came alive with his mother's familiar face.

_"Hey! You made it back to civilization!"_ she greeted with a cheery smile. _"Excellent! So which town are you in now?"_

"Shinobi Town," he answered. "Oh, hey look at what I got!" Unleashing Bolt from its ball, the pichu blinked and curiously poked at the video screen. "Bolt, say hi to my mom!"

Her blue-green eyes widened. _"You know, while I _love_ water pokémon…I have a secret weakness for these guys."_

"There's more!" Naruto boasted. He let his magikarp free and struggled to lift the large fish into the camera's view. "This is Typhoon!"

_"An ambitious name,"_ she remarked. _"But I'm sure that one day your fishy will back that up."_

His smile found a way to get wider. "Hehe, yeah!"

_"So, how's it going with Demon?"_ she asked.

Naruto grimaced and put Typhoon away. "A tiny bit better. It'll be a while before I can use it in any kind of serious battle."

_"Well, baby steps can go a long way, it just takes time,"_ she advised. _"So, did you run into any trainers while you were traveling?"_

"Yeah," he nodded.

She leaned in eagerly. _"Did you get into any battles?"_

"Ah…no," he muttered, glancing away.

He could've challenged Shino or Kiba to a fight, but he hadn't felt like it. Typhoon wasn't strong enough yet and Demon wasn't trustworthy. There was only Bolt, and he knew that both boys at least had two monsters they could call on.

If he was going to challenge either boy, he wanted a better choice of minions so that he could give his opponents a battle they'd remember because they weren't just random trainers on the road, they were his classmates.

_"You haven't battled anyone before and you're going to challenge a gym?"_ his mother asked worriedly.

"I'll snoop around first," Naruto explained. "If I can, I'll challenge a gym trainer before I try the leader. I need to get three badges before next year, Mom!"

_"You still have a full year,"_ she reminded him. _"You don't have to be in such a rush."_

"Don't worry, Mom," he sighed. "I'll figure things out."

_"Alright,"_ she replied with a reluctant nod. _"You said that you're in Shinobi Town?"_

"Yeah," he confirmed.

_"Shinobi Town…"_ she muttered to herself and wandered away from her phone, vanishing from the screen. _"Where did I put that book?"_

Naruto blinked and stared at an excellent view of the kitchen. It looked like his mother was in the process of either making poffins for her pokémon, or cookies. And then, just as he was getting bored, his mother's starmie drifted into view.

Out of all her pokémon, he found Hoshi the starmie to be the creepiest. It had no face, no visible eyes or mouth, and it just floated around with its multifaceted gem flashing or glowing. It was also large, bigger than he was—it was still bigger than he was.

"Hoshi?" he called into the audio pick-up.

The large purple starfish froze, then drew in close the video phone until all that the screen showed was its large red gemstone, flashing in a psychedelic pattern. Bolt stared at the screen for a minute before turning away, looking decidedly dizzy. Naruto scrubbed at his eyes and knocked on the screen.

"Stop it, Hoshi!" he commanded. "You're giving me a headache!"

_"Hoshi!"_ The giant double-starfish was shoved aside and his mother's face reappeared on the screen. _"Okay…"_ She flipped through a book and studied a page for several minutes. _"…Kakashi."_

"Scarecrow?" Naruto muttered blankly.

_"That's the name of the gym leader,"_ his mother informed him. _"Kakashi Hatake."_ She was silent for a minute. _"He doesn't really specialize in anything, from what I remember. He's very smart. Because you don't have any badges, he'll hold back when you fight…but don't mistake that for going easy on you."_

"…You know this guy?" he asked curiously.

While he knew that his mother had been a trainer, she rarely talked much about the people she had met on her travels. She'd talk all about the adventures she had with her pokémon, and the battles they'd been in together, but she rarely said much about other trainers. He'd never thought too much on it because she'd always get him so wrapped up in the story of the pokémon that he never caught what she was leaving out or not talking about.

_"I was acquainted with him a long time ago,"_ she replied, _"when he wasn't much older than you are now."_

"Cool. Thanks for the info Mom; I'll keep it in mind." He waved at the screen. "Bye!"

_"Be careful and do your best,"_ she smiled and waved. _"Bye!"_

And then there was a click and the screen went dark.

Naruto sighed and removed Bolt from the little shelf in front of the pay video phone and carried the pichu up the stairs to where the bunks for traveling trainers were.

"Time for a little nap, and then snooping…"

* * *

The next afternoon, Naruto sat in the stands inside the Shinobi Town gym with Bolt sitting on his head and watched as a challenger waited for the gym leader to arrive. The gym building was very plain, it just looked like an abandoned warehouse with some leftover boxes stacked in the corners, a battle field painted on the dirt floor, and bleachers on one side of the field for spectators. Apparently there wasn't too much to do in Shinobi Town so the gym leader allowed anyone in to watch trainers trying for his gym's badge.

On the gym doors, Naruto had noticed some rules posted for all challenging trainers. The gym leader offered only one battle per day and all battles had to be scheduled ahead of time. The gym leader also could refuse a challenging trainer if they were trying again too soon…or if they were rude.

_This should be good._ Naruto grinned in anticipation. _Now if only the gym leader would show up…_

A few minutes later, a trainer who worked in the gym and was set to referee the match, stood up from the wooden crate he'd been sitting on and the gym leader appeared from the far door.

The man was tall with silver hair, an eye-patch, and a gray and black scarf wrapped around his neck and mouth. He was dressed in a dark-colored trench coat, fingerless gloves, and faded gray pants. The small visible portion of his face looked thoroughly bored as he slouched his way over to his end of the battling field. A violet-colored granbull trotted after him and sat at his feet when he stopped.

"Can we start now?" the challenging trainer, a boy a few years older than Naruto, asked.

"Do you remember the rules that I gave you yesterday?" the gym leader responded blandly.

"Yeah, I do!" the challenger growled.

"Then we can start!" Kakashi Hatake answered almost cheerfully. "Knock yourself out!"

The teenager immediately began by releasing a geodude, a living rock that was little more than a stone face with arms. Kakashi unleashed a lucario, a sleek fighting canine with black and blue steel skin. And then he pulled an orange book out of his pocket and started reading, leaving the fight solely to his pokémon.

"What's he doing?" Naruto muttered to himself.

"He does this all the time," a girl who was sitting nearby explained, her eyes fixed on the fight. "His pokémon are so well-trained he rarely has to give them any direction at all. It's amazing!"

Down below, the lucario easily trounced the geodude. The challenger lashed out with a bayleef, which Kakashi countered with a fire-breathing arcanine. That match-up was even quicker than the first and the frustrated and desperate challenger sent out a corsola. The gym leader seemed to take an extra moment before swapping out his arcanine for…a ditto.

Naruto grimaced at the sight of the shapeless purple-gray blob. _It looks kinda like chewed up gum…_

The ditto eyed its opponent before there was a puff of smoke and it transformed into a replica of the corsola. The only way to tell the two apart was that the transformed ditto was still grayish-purple in color and it still had a ditto-ish face. And then the fight started.

The match-up wasn't as even as Naruto had expected it would be. The ditto copied every attack that the corsola threw at it, but it was at a higher level than its foe. It was faster and stronger and had better stamina than the challenger pokémon. Its higher level gave it the edge, and it won without the gym leader giving it a single command.

"The winner of this challenge," the referee-trainer announced, "Gym Leader Kakashi."

The audience gave some polite applause and a few ragged cheers.

Naruto gulped nervously. _This guy is really good. …Maybe I should've gone with Kiba, Shino, and Hinata to Kunoichi Town._

The patchy crowd started to disperse now that the show was over, but the gym leader didn't seem to notice. He was still reading his orange book. The man had barely glanced up from the pages to switch his monsters.

Intensely curious, Naruto crept down from the bleachers and over to the still-reading gym leader. The granbull still sitting at the man's feet made him cautious; it's long lower fangs looked very sharp and unpleasant. But what was he reading that was so fascinating that he just _had_ to read it while in the middle of a pokémon battle?!

"Uh…what are you reading?"

The silver-haired man looked up from his reading material and studied him with his one visible eye. "…How old are you?"

"Eleven," Naruto answered.

"Then I'm reading something that you can't read," the gym leader answered.

Naruto frowned and peered at the orange book cover. The back cover had a red circle with a line through it and a warning against readers under eighteen years of age reading it. The front cover was entitled _Come, Come Paradise_.

"By the way," the man added, "what happened to your face?"

"An accident, when I was little," Naruto muttered sourly and rubbed self-consciously at one of his scarred cheeks.

Back home, everyone knew the source of his strangely whisker-like facial scars. But ever since he'd set foot in Shinobi Town he'd felt curious eyes lingering on his cheeks. Gym Leader Kakashi was the first person to ask about it, but Naruto feared that he wouldn't be the last.

"I see that you have a pokémon with you," the gym leader noted, noticing the pichu sitting on Naruto's head. "Any interest in challenging me?"

"Maybe," Naruto replied, trying not to seem as nervous as he was.

Kakashi snapped his book shut and slipped it into one of his coat pockets. "How many badges do you have?"

"None," Naruto muttered, glancing to the side in embarrassment.

"Hmm…and how many pokémon do you have?" the silver-haired man inquired.

"Three," the boy answered.

"I see…" the man nodded. "Well, if you would like to challenge me, here are the rules that we would play by: I would limit myself to using Copycat, and you may use any two of your three pokémon. If you blow it, I suppose I'll let you try again in a week if you want."

"Copycat?" Naruto blinked.

"My ditto," Kakashi explained. He tapped at his covered chin thoughtfully. "I believe I have an opening for you as soon as tomorrow. Check with Tenzo and he'll set you up with an appointment."

And then the gym leader walked away, his granbull at his heels.

Naruto stared after him until he vanished. "…Great."

"So you want to challenge the gym?"

Naruto yelped and spun around, dislodging Bolt from his head, and saw the trainer who had refereed the fight. He seemed about the same age as the gym leader, and looked almost as bored. He had short brown hair and very dark eyes that kind of gave Naruto the creeps.

"Er…yeah?" Naruto squeaked.

The dark-haired trainer—Tenzo—shook his head and beckoned for Naruto to follow. "Let's see if they're any time slots to your liking."

The older trainer led him into a cluttered little office hidden in the shadows of some large crates. There might've been a desk buried under old newspapers, empty take-out containers, and other less identifiable papers, but it could've been one giant pile of garbage for all that Naruto could see. Tenzo fetched a beat-up binder and flipped through the pages until he came to the proper place and handed it over along with a stub of a pencil.

Naruto frowned at the schedule. All of the morning was blacked out and only a few hours were blank in the afternoon. He stared at the time slots and fidgeted with the pencil for a few minutes, unable to decide…

_…Ah, why not? If I don't make it, he said I could try again in a week. That's not so bad…right?_

Impulsively he signed his name in at one in the afternoon and handed the binder and pencil back.

"Alright," Tenzo nodded and put the binder away. "We'll see you tomorrow…if you don't chicken out."

"I won't chicken out!" Naruto frowned, and Bolt boldly squeaked to back him up.

Tenzo snorted. "Well, don't take it too hard when Kakashi-sempai beats you. Learn from it."

Naruto stuck his tongue out at the gym trainer and left the office and the gym building.

_We'll see whether I lose or not tomorrow!_

* * *

Naruto tried not to tremble too visibly as he waited for his gym challenge to start. The bleachers, which had been half-full the day before, were empty of spectators. And the gym leader was nearly an hour late for the appointment.

"Where is everybody?" he asked Tenzo, who was sitting on a small crate on the sidelines.

"The last challenger was a punk, so Kakashi-sempai made sure that the match was publicized so he'd be embarrassed when he lost," Tenzo replied as he picked at his nails with a pocket knife. "He likes you a bit better, so no public humiliation…this time."

_Great._ "So you know he likes me because he doesn't feel like embarrassing me in front of a bunch of strangers?"

"That," Tenzo nodded, "and he seemed very interested in your name. I think he even looked up your trainer information…what little there was."

Naruto shrugged. "Well, when I talked to my mom on the phone she said that she knew him when he was little."

"Really?" Tenzo paused in cleaning his nails to scrutinize the young trainer. "Very interesting. Kakashi-sempai doesn't talk much about his adventures before I met him."

The doors at the back of the gym opened and the gym leader approached the battling field, still being followed faithfully by his granbull.

"You're late!" Naruto accused with an angry jab of a finger.

"Sorry, sorry," Kakashi shrugged carelessly. "I got lost on the road of life for a while."

Naruto blinked. _Is this guy for real?_

"Well, let's get this show on the road," the silver-haired man sighed and unleashed his ditto. "Pick your first fighter."

Biting his lip, he hesitated a moment before releasing Typhoon.

"…Are you serious?" Tenzo asked, staring at the flopping magikarp.

"Yeah," Naruto nodded.

"Okay," Tenzo muttered and stood up from his crate chair. "Begin!"

"Alright Copycat, do your thing," Kakashi instructed and the ditto transformed into a gray-ish magikarp all the way down to the pathetic flopping on the dirt floor.

Naruto studied the magikarp and false magikarp for a moment before deciding what to do. "Typhoon, try out your _tackle_."

The orange fish did its best to obey and flopped towards its foe. If the battle had involved a pool, it wouldn't have looked so pathetic, but on dry land it just looked sad. The ditto-karp just flopped in place until the last moment before flipping out of the way.

The battle went much like it had the previous day between the ditto and the corsola. Typhoon kept trying to hit it with its only attack, but the ditto just kept dodging and occasionally hit back with its own more powerful _tackle_. And in the end the result was the same: Copycat won and Typhoon lost.

"Sorry about that," he muttered to the fish as he returned the limp creature to its sphere.

He'd hoped that Typhoon would at least wear down the ditto a little bit, maybe cause it some damage. He might've used Demon to wear the ditto down, except when he'd tried to train with the fire fox the previous day all he'd gotten for his trouble was a face full of embers. But now it was time to put his real plan into action, and he unleashed Bolt onto the battlefield.

"Okay Bolt, _charm _and _thunder shock_!" Naruto instructed.

"Copycat, reset and _transform_," Kakashi said calmly.

The ditto melted back into a shapeless blob and then there was a puff of smoke and it became a gray-tinged pichu with a ditto face. Bolt looked a bit unnerved at the transformation, but put on a charming face and before the ditto could imitate the move the pichu launched an electrical attack. The ditto took the hit and retaliated with a _thunder shock _of its own.

Small bolts of lightning were exchanged, along with a few charming stares and _tail whip_s, but Naruto was starting to get worried. He'd been counting on Bolt's electricity and _static_ ability to paralyze the ditto, but it wasn't happening. The longer the fight went on, the more the ditto's high level showed as it dished out punishment while Bolt's efforts grew weaker due to damage and mounting exhaustion.

"Bolt, _tackle_ it!" Naruto commanded out of desperation.

The little yellow mouse charged and crashed into the ditto-pichu, but it didn't have the effect that Naruto was hoping for—Bolt's _static_ didn't take effect.

Naruto clenched his teeth and made once last attempt to paralyze the ditto and level the playing field. "Bolt, _thunder wave_!"

The pichu sent a wave of static electricity at its foe…but the ditto shrugged the paralyzing move off and hit Bolt with a _tackle_. Bolt skidded and bounced a bit before coming to a stop. He didn't get back up. Naruto returned him to his pokéball.

The fight was over.

"The battle is over," Tenzo announced, his voice echoing up in the bare rafters of the building. "Winner: Gym Leader Kakashi."

Kakashi returned his ditto to its pokéball as soon as it had melted back into its normal shapeless form.

"You were counting on paralyzing Copycat, weren't you?" he stated more than asked.

Naruto nodded mutely, numbly realizing that the gym leader hadn't brought out his orange book during the fight.

"I don't suppose that you did any research on dittos before the fight, did you?"

Naruto shook his head.

Kakashi sighed. "Well, for your information, ditto's ability is _limber_, which means that it can't be paralyzed by anything. Please keep that in mind for next week…if you still want to try for my gym's badge. The rules will be the same, unless you manage to capture two or more new pokémon before then, which will require a resetting of the rules."

"Okay," Naruto mumbled and slunk out of the warehouse building.

_I'm such an idiot…_


	2. Part II

**Ditto!**_  
Part II_

Naruto sat up against a tree trunk on the edge of Shinobi Town and stared out into the woods. Bolt sat next to him, slumped and dejected over his defeat. Typhoon remained in his pokéball as there was no water around deeper than a shallow puddle, and he just looked pathetic and unhappy flopping around on dry land. Demon lay curled on a rock not far away basking in a sunbeam that made his golden pelt glitter.

His defeat at the gym leader's hands the day before had been humiliating. Kakashi had told him what pokémon he was going to use, and instead of researching it so that he could formulate a plan of attack for defeating it, he assumed that he could just paralyze it and win the fight that way. If only he'd done his homework…

"Man, I'm so stupid," Naruto groaned and tugged at his spiky yellow hair.

Bolt mirrored his distress with depressed squeaking.

"Don't feel bad, you didn't do anything wrong," Naruto sighed and rubbed the pichu's head between his diamond-shaped ears. "I'm the trainer; I'm the one who thinks up the strategies. It's my fault that we lost. I should have known better. You did great!"

This didn't seem to perk Bolt up any, which was worrisome.

A pichu only evolved into pikachu when it was happy and strongly bonded to its trainer. A pichu who had lost a lot of battles and felt bad about itself and resented its trainer would never evolve. If Naruto kept losing, he knew that would be Bolt's fate, and that wasn't cool at all.

"Things might've turned out better if I could've worn that ditto down with a more powerful pokémon than Typhoon," Naruto groused. "If only Demon would be more help," he added loudly.

The vulpix did little more than flick an ear at that.

"What's your problem anyway?" Naruto continued, eying the six-tailed fox. "It's like you hate everything and everybody for no reason at all."

Demon cracked open one eye and stared at him boredly before yawning widely and resettling itself on the rock so that its back was to Naruto.

"You're such a brat," Naruto muttered glumly.

_I can't trust him to help me, and though Typhoon tried, he's not well-suited to fight ditto again. Bolt can't take that icky blob down by himself…_ Naruto swallowed hard. _I need to catch another monster._

"Alright." Naruto hopped to his feet and forced an upbeat grin on his face. "Let's not lay around and do nothing but feel sorry for ourselves, we've got work to do! We need to find a new ally. Let's go hunting!"

Bolt seemed willing to go along with that idea and climbed up his pant leg to take a seat on his shoulder. Demon, however, made no move to get up and follow. Naruto clenched his teeth and marched over to scoop the disobedient pokémon up and carry it off.

Demon yelped and thrashed at the unwanted contact until Naruto was forced to drop him.

Naruto scowled at the vulpix. "You know, a lot of pokémon _love_ to be carried around by people."

The little fox bared its teeth at him.

"Well follow me and I won't have to try and carry you around!"

The fiery beast snorted at him and then pranced off into the woods.

"Hey wait!" Naruto sputtered, following after the tinkling sound of Demon's soothe bell. "Not that way!"

* * *

Two days later, and he'd had no luck. Sure, there were pokémon around Shinobi Town, but nothing that Naruto wanted to catch. He didn't want to catch some monsters just to use as placeholders until he came across a beast that he really wanted. It wouldn't be fair.

_Why can't there be nidoran around here?_ Naruto groused. _Male or female, it wouldn't matter, so long as it had the _poison point_ ability. Then it has the chance of poisoning on contact, and ditto's _limber_ can't protect against that!_

_…A fighting type would be even better. Ditto is a normal type, and normal types are weak against fighting attacks. When ditto transforms, its type doesn't change._

Shaking his head, Naruto forged on through the woods around town, keeping his eyes peeled for pokémon to capture. So far, he'd only encountered things like rattata, bidoof, and meowth. If he ventured out at night he might find other things…but it got creepy at night and he was tired by then.

_At least we've gotten some training time in…_

He'd found a fast moving stream where he had Typhoon swim against the current to build up strength and stamina. Bolt and Demon got a lot of exercise in wandering around the woods and sometimes he had them fight against wild pokémon. Well, Bolt fought against the wild pokémon; Demon seemed more interested in setting Naruto's feet on fire.

But even with the training, Naruto knew that they still needed a new fighter to join them, or a great new strategy for taking down the ditto…or both.

Up ahead of him, Bolt poked its head into various bushes and sniffed around for other monsters. Behind him, Demon skulked after them and did its best to be no help at all. Naruto stayed in the middle and mused on the possibility of catching a flying type pokémon as he'd heard rumors of flocks of spearow and starly that lived north of town that he'd heard in the pokémon center.

The little pichu paused in the examination of another bush and Naruto nearly stepped on him in distraction.

"Eh, what is it?"

Bolt seemed to hear something, then took off in a direction that Naruto didn't think that they'd gone in before.

"Hey, wait up!" he yelped.

The electrical mouse skittered over fallen logs and boulders until it came to a wooden fence, which didn't seem to be a barrier so much as marker of a boundary. Bolt climbed atop one of the fence posts and looked around at the field beyond curiously. Naruto quickly caught up and leaned on the fence to catch his breath while Demon poked its head under the fence.

At first glance it was some kind of pokémon ranch. But the variety of pokémon that wandered the field was too great—pokémon ranches tended to specialize in one species, or a few species of pokémon. There were common species like rattata, sentret, bidoof, and zigzagoon, along with some less common kinds like growlithe, nidoran, meowth, skitty, and snubull. It was like a collection of the favored species kept as pets, and that wasn't taking to account whatever might live in the pond in the corner of the field.

"…What is this place?" Naruto wondered.

A thick dark green arm with spikes on it swiped at his head and he barely ducked in time. Stumbling away from the fence with Bolt tucked under his arm and nearly tripping over Demon in the process, Naruto caught sight of a green-hued, human-shaped pokémon standing on the other side of the fence. It sort of looked like a humanoid cactus with a triangle-shaped hat on its head. Naruto realized that he'd seen it as soon as he'd reached the field, but it had been standing so still out in the field that he'd assumed it had been some kind of scarecrow put up to keep wild pokémon from trespassing.

The cactus-like pokémon raised its spiky arm as if to attack again and Naruto tensed.

"Hey wait!"

"Now, now, Spike, it's alright."

Naruto snapped his head to the left and found the gym leader and his granbull walking along the other side of the fence. The large cactus pokémon hesitated, and then lowered its spiny arm and wandered back into the field. With the pokémon—Spike—gone, Naruto slowly returned to the fence with his pokémon.

"That cactus thing is yours?" he asked hesitantly.

"Yep," Kakashi nodded. "My father gave it to me as a cacnea. I didn't get the joke until it evolved into a cacturne."

Naruto blinked. "Joke?"

"Look it up and see if you can figure it out," the silver-haired man suggested.

Obediently Naruto pulled out his pokédex and looked up the entry on cacturne. The small device's tinny, monotone voice began reciting facts about that particular species of pokémon. One of the first facts it reported caught his attention.

"'The scarecrow pokémon'?" Naruto repeated. _Scarecrow…Kakashi… Oh._ He snickered.

"Exactly," Kakashi said dryly and leaned against his side of the fence. "What brings you out here?"

"Just looking," Naruto shrugged. "What is this place, exactly?"

"It's a sanctuary," the gym leader answered.

Naruto eyed the pokémon out in the field skeptically. "Really?"

"It's a sanctuary for abandoned pokémon," the man elaborated.

The idea of abandoned pokémon was absolutely foreign to Naruto. Who would abandon a pokémon?! And why?

"Some people just aren't cut out for looking after pokémon. They try to keep them as pets but then realize that it's a lot of work and they don't want to do any of it. So after a while they just let them go, but once a pokémon has been tamed it doesn't do very well back in the wild. And some pokémon here have even sadder stories." Kakashi shook his head. "People can be very cruel sometimes."

Naruto rubbed Bolt between the ears and stared out at a couple of rattata playing with each other. "So all the abandoned pokémon come here to live?"

"Not all of them," the gym leader answered, "just the stray pokémon from here and a few surrounding town and cities. If they aren't too damaged by their experiences, I try to find good homes for them. But those who can't, I bring them here to live out their lives in peace."

"…That's cool," Naruto decided.

Kakashi chuckled and his one visible eye crinkled with an unseen smile. "It's nice that you think so." He eyed Naruto for a moment before speaking again. "So Naruto, tell me—"

Some growling down by their feet halted whatever the gym leader was about to say. Demon seemed to have taken offense to Kakashi's granbull and was getting all snarly at it. The purple bulldog-ish creature pulled a _scary face_ and then leaned over to _lick_ the startled vulpix, leaving it temporarily paralyzed.

"…Does that vulpix belong to you?" the gym leader asked.

"Yeah," Naruto sighed glumly and scooped up the trembling and frozen little fox.

"The color doesn't seem to be quite right," Kakashi remarked.

"I know," Naruto muttered and dug around in his pack for a cheri berry to reverse Demon's paralysis.

"Hmm…" Kakashi watched as Naruto pried the vulpix's mouth open and shoved a small, red, spicy berry inside. "Is it always so aggressive?"

"Pretty much," Naruto shrugged. "He's just plain mean."

"Even with a soothe bell?" the man asked.

"I just got the bell. I don't think it works right away."

The berry took effect and Demon's tensed muscles relaxed. The golden-hued fox hissed down at the granbull, but made no move to squirm out of Naruto's arms. The granbull snapped its jaws threateningly.

"Easy there, Pakkun," Kakashi murmured, patting the little monster's head. "I think that you asserted your dominance nicely already."

Naruto poked Demon in the shoulder. "Quiet you."

Bolt added his own chastising squeaks from his perch on top of the fence. Demon took offense to the pichu's opinion and yapped something angry back. They bickered a bit like two little kids crammed in the backseat of a car before Demon spat a burst of embers at Bolt, forcing the tiny pokémon to desperately dodge.

"Hey!" Naruto snapped, giving Demon a little shake. "None of that!"

"I think I can see why you didn't use this one in our battle," the silver-haired man commented.

Naruto hung his head. _This is so embarrassing…_

"Well I'm sure you'll get through to your vulpix with some patience." Kakashi chuckled. "Or just plain stubbornness."

Naruto tried to scratch Demon behind the ear, but got a growl instead of a purr.

"Well, back to what I meant to ask…your mother is Kushina Uzumaki, right?" the one-eyed gym leader asked.

"Yeah," the boy nodded.

"And what about your father?"

Naruto gave the senior trainer a puzzled look. "What about him?"

"Who is he?"

"I dunno," the boy muttered with a shrug.

That was a question he hated almost as much as 'what happened to your face?'. When he'd been very young, he could satisfy his peers with: _I don't have one_. However, as soon as they'd grown old enough to understand that _everyone_ had a father, that answer hadn't done it. But he'd never had anything else to give them.

He tried asking his mother all the time about why he didn't have a dad like all the other kids in his class, but she never really answered him. She always promised to tell him everything when he was older, but with each birthday that passed she never came any closer to telling him anything. Naruto had given up asking last year.

"You don't know?" Kakashi repeated slowly.

"No," Naruto said. "Why does that matter?"

The gym leader sighed. "Could you give me your mother's number, please?"

Naruto squinted at the man suspiciously. "Why?"

"She's an old friend of mine," Kakashi replied. "It's been a long time since we've talked and I'd like to see how she's doing."

"My mom said that you were just an acquaintance," Naruto informed him warily.

The silver-haired trainer blinked. "Just an acquaintance?" He clutched at his chest as if pained. "We traveled together for over a year…and I'm just an acquaintance? Oh that's cold of her…"

Naruto nibbled at his lip as he thought about what to do. "Well, if you know her that well, I guess I can give you the number. If she doesn't like you calling, she could just send her gyarados to terrorize you into stopping."

Kakashi laughed nervously. "She would do that!"

The boy recited the number for the gym leader, who copied it down on the inside cover of his strange orange book.

"Thank you!" the man smiled and snapped his book shut. "So…have you captured anything new?"

Naruto shook his head.

"Really?" Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "There are plenty of wild pokémon that hang around the fringes of town…"

"I know, I just…haven't found anything that I want," the boy explained.

"Picky, are we?" The gym leader stared out over the field of the sanctuary for a minute before deciding something. "I'll tell you what, since you so kindly gave me your number, I'll give you a tip. Do you know about the creek on the east side of town?"

The boy nodded.

"Follow that upstream for about half a day and you'll come to a clearing with a small waterfall—it's barely two feet tall. A few rarer species sometimes appear there. If you're quiet and patient, I'm sure that you'll see something that you like."

Naruto's blue eyes lit up. "Hey, thanks!"

Kakashi smiled at him. Or, at least it looked like he was smiling. With his mouth covered up by his scarf, it was impossible to be completely sure.

"C'mon Bolt, let's go!" Naruto cried and scampered off with Demon still in his arms. "We have a little trip to take!"

Bolt squeaked in excitement and hurried hot on his heels.

_Things just might be looking up!_

* * *

Kakashi Hatake watched the boy disappear, and then sighed. "Let's go Pakkun, I need to make a phone call."

He and his canine companion left the sanctuary field under Spike's healthy protection and head back into town. He found a pay video phone booth and slipped inside. Flipping open his favorite novel, he fed money into the phone and dialed the copied number. After two rings, there was the click of a connection and the video screen came alive.

"Good afternoon, Kushina-san!" he greeted cheerfully. "It's been a while. And…did you grow out your hair?"

_"Yes,"_ the red-haired woman replied slowly. Her face was blank, guarded—very uncharacteristic of the woman that he remembered. _"How did you get this number?"_

"Naruto gave it to me," Kakashi answered. "Cute kid; very interesting. I was hoping to compare dads with him, but he doesn't seem to know anything about his old man. Why is that?"

_"If you called me to lecture me, I'm hanging up."_

Not for the first time, Kakashi wondered what had happened. The Kushina Uzumaki that he remembered was a wild woman that was always laughing or cursing or had some wicked gleam in her eye. Motherhood would surely mellow her some, but it wouldn't make her open face so closed and cold. It wouldn't make her disappear without a word to anyone.

But…she did have something of a reputation of running away from her troubles. She'd reportedly had a falling out with her family, so she'd left them behind without a word and never gone back. Aside from the odd, vague postcard that she sent them so that they knew she was still alive, she made no contact with them.

It seemed like she was doing the same thing again…just not to her family; this time it was everyone else.

"You know," Kakashi sighed. "Minato-sempai doesn't really smile anymore. I'm sure that a letter or a phone call from you would fix that."

_"No…"_ She looked away from the screen. _"No it wouldn't."_

And then the connection went dead.

Kakashi stared at the black screen. "Huh…I was hoping that I could keep her talking a few minutes longer."

Pakkun tugged at his pant leg and whined a bit.

"Sorry that you didn't get to say hello, too," Kakashi murmured and patted the fierce-looking canine on the head. "Next time." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he wandered out of the phone booth and back towards his gym. "Maybe if I mentioned Naruto's performance in the gym, she would've stayed on the line longer," he mused aloud. "But…I don't think Naruto would appreciate his mother hearing how badly he did…"

As he walked, Kakashi glanced up at the sky and noted the shapes of the fluffy clouds.

_I wonder…who should I call next?_

* * *

Naruto sighed and shifted to try and keep his legs from cramping as he waited. He'd found the meadow with the small waterfall that the gym leader had described to him, and now it was all about chance and waiting. He had until Friday—when he next try was scheduled—to find something.

Three days left.

Bolt and Typhoon were having a blast. The stream and tiny waterfall was a good training spot for the magikarp. And Bolt enjoyed the flowers in the meadow and camping out away from the town. Demon, however, seemed quite indifferent to the change in location, and either ignored them all or went about causing some kind of trouble.

So far, the meadow hadn't yielded much of anything that Naruto hadn't seen before. The most notable event had been when a small flock of pidgey had landed to feed on grass seeds and small insects. While there wasn't anything particularly special about pidgey, its flying ability would let it carry mail for him so he could stay in touch with his mother even when he was out in the middle of nowhere for extended periods of time. But, before he could have Bolt single one out and paralyze it, Demon had decided to _roar_ and the whole small flock had fled.

_Stupid brat,_ Naruto fumed. _At least I have three days until I need to head back. Three days is plenty of time…_

At least, it should be.

_A fighting type would be nice… But most of those live in the mountains. I think mankey live in forests though…_

A rustling bush across the meadow caught Naruto's attention. He held his breath as he waited to see what would emerge. Just when he thought that the suspense would kill him, it appeared.

Immediately he recalled Demon to its ball. There was no way that he'd let the misbehaving beast mess this hunt up. This little monster was far more valuable than a common pidgey.

"C'mon, Bolt," he whispered, motioning the tiny yellow creature to him. "Let's get that eevee…"


	3. Part III

**Ditto!**_  
Part III_

Naruto grinned broadly as he strolled out of the pokémon center and into the streets of Shinobi Town. He followed the main street to the edge of town and then headed east to the stream. Once there, he released Typhoon into the stream and sat down on the grassy bank where he released Bolt and Demon. And then he pulled out a fourth pokéball.

There was a flash of light and then a fourth creature appeared. Its fur was shades of light brown. It had a brushy fox-like tail and a fluffy ruff of fur around its neck. The small four-legged monster had long, thin ears and large dark eyes that stared up at him timidly.

"Hi!"

The eevee's ears twitched and the fluffy creature tentatively approached him. It sniffed at his knee before timidly creeping into his lap. Naruto tried not to let his teeth show in his smile, as wild pokémon found teeth bared for any reason to be a sign of aggression, but it was very hard not to.

Eevees were one of the most sought-after species of pokémon because they had the potential to evolve into so many different things. Exposing an eevee to a fire stone would result in the fire type flareon. A thunder stone would create the electric type jolteon. And a water stone would create a vaporeon, just like his mother's Uzu-chan.

But…evolution stones were expensive, and he already had water, electric, and fire type pokémon in Typhoon, Bolt, and Demon. That still left four other possible evolutions to choose from. If an eevee was taken far to the north to one of a few special locations, it would become the ice type glaceon. Or if an eevee was taken deep into one of a few special forests, it would become the grass type leafeon.

Traveling to a far-north country like the Land of Iron or the Land of Snow just to evolve one pokémon seemed rather silly to Naruto. And besides, Typhoon could be taught ice-type attacks. A leafeon was much more tempting as, if he remembered right, there was a special mossy stone tucked away in the Forest of Death in his native Land of Fire. But…that place was still far away from where he was now, and there were several gyms in the way of getting there.

_That leaves two possibilities that might happen before I get to the Forest of Death,_ he thought as he stroked the eevee's soft, fluffy fur. _Espeon the psychic type or umbreon the dark type…_

Psychic types were powerful, and in the past before dark types were discovered, they were the heavy favorite for any trainer. When dark types were uncovered and studied, it was found that they were fully immune to any kind of psychic assault, and overnight they tilted the balance of power. While dark types were vulnerable to bug and fighting type pokémon, they were great slayers of ghosts and psychics—two of the hardest types to defeat.

"I think I'll call you Shadow," he decided, scratching the eevee behind one ear. _If he turns out evolving into an espeon I'll just rename him something a bit more appropriate…but I hope he'll grow up to be an umbreon._

The eevee—Shadow—accepted this with a happy squeak.

"Now let's meet everyone!" Naruto said cheerfully. "That's Bolt, and Demon, and Typhoon." With each name, he pointed at the pokémon that it belonged to. "Everyone, say hi to Shadow!"

Bolt waved cheerfully and chattered something welcoming. Typhoon bobbed in the stream and waggled his fins. Demon…started to growl.

"Hey, be nice!" he scolded the vulpix as his new eevee burrowed deeper into his lap to hide from the aggressive monster. "It's much better to make friends than enemies, you know."

Demon turned up its nose at him and curled up on the grass to go about ignoring everyone else.

"Brat," Naruto muttered. "Don't mind him," he advised Shadow. "He's always in a bad mood."

"Naruto?"

The blonde boy snapped his head around so fast he almost gave himself whiplash. A few yards away stood three trainers around his age. And he knew all of them; they'd been in his class.

There was Sai, the class weirdo. He lived with some creepy old man named Danzou who had lost an eye and an arm in some kind of accident with wild pokémon. The pale, dark-haired boy had rarely said a word in school unless a teacher had called on him. He'd mostly spent his time staring blankly as he listened or doodling in one of his notebooks. Although, sometimes for no reason that anyone could see, he would just smile this creepy fake smile. Nobody really talked to him and he really didn't seem to talk to anyone, and that worked out just fine for everyone involved.

Then there was Sasuke of the esteemed Uchiha clan. He'd been an okay guy when he'd been younger, but after a while he'd gotten all anti-social and brood-y. Sasuke's older brother, Itachi, was something of a prodigy, and had taken over the family gym in some distant city at a ridiculously young age. Itachi got all the attention and praise in the family and Sasuke felt overlooked. He'd become obsessed with surpassing his older brother as a pokémon trainer and getting the recognition he thought he deserved from his parents and relatives.

And then there was the pink-haired, green-eyed Sakura Haruno. She was one of the prettiest girls in his year, and she was the smartest girl in class. The Haruno family was distantly related to the Yamanaka clan, but they were nowhere near as well-known or wealthy. As she was one of the few kids in his class that didn't come from a wealthy or privileged background, he thought of her as a kindred spirit of sorts. She would be the perfect girlfriend…

"Hi, Sakura-chan!" he grinned goofily and waved.

"What are you doing out here?" the pretty girl asked.

"Training," Naruto answered cheerfully.

"But…" Sakura frowned. "You failed the trainer's exam…_again_."

"Well…I got a probationary license from Professor Sarutobi," Naruto explained.

"Statistics state that trainers who gain probationary licenses have a less than forty percent chance of upgrading their licenses to full trainer licenses before their probationary period lapses," Sai announced.

"I'm totally going to meet the requirements for a full license in time, just you wait and see!" Naruto declared, shooting a scowl Sai's way.

Bolt immediately backed his declaration with some energetic squeaking and a shake of his tiny paw. In the stream, Typhoon made a leap from the water to cause a noticeable splash. Shadow timidly peeked around Naruto's torso at the newcomers. Demon snorted derisively.

Sakura cocked her head. "You have a pichu?"

Sasuke snorted. "A magikarp? How fitting…"

"Yeah, I have a pichu," Naruto grinned at the girl, ignoring Sasuke's comment. He shifted around on the ground so that he was sitting facing his old classmates. His pichu hopped up onto his shoulder. "Bolt, say hi to Sakura-chan!"

Bolt looked at the girl curiously, his large ears twitching.

"Aw, he's kind of cute—" Then her pale green eyes landed on the brown furball in his lap. "An eevee?! Where did you get that?"

"Upstream from here," Naruto answered. "There's this—"

"Oh he's so cute!" she squealed and snatched up the cute fluff-ball. "I wish I had one! He's so cuddly and soft…"

Shadow yipped in alarm and wriggled out of the girl's grasp and retreated behind Naruto.

"I only caught him yesterday," Naruto explained with an apologetic shrug. "He's not that used to people yet."

"Oh…" Sakura pouted. "A pichu, an eevee, a magikarp…that's three pokémon." She sent an adoring glance towards Sasuke, who ignored it. "Sasuke-kun already has _four_ pokémon."

It really wasn't fair. Sasuke was handsome and rich, but he was a total jerk to all the girls who liked him _yet they still chased after him_. They found his anti-social behavior to be mysterious and intriguing. And of course Sakura was one of Sasuke's biggest fans.

"I have four pokémon!" Naruto informed her. He set Shadow aside and removed Bolt from his shoulder before carefully moving Demon into full view. The vulpix didn't try to bite him, but it did glare at the three new trainers that it faced. "See, here's number four!"

"That vulpix's coloration is all wrong," Sai immediately noted. "Did you dye it, or is it naturally defective?"

Demon took offense to this and had Naruto not clamped a hand over the fox's little snout, it would've spray red-hot embers on the pale boy.

"No, I didn't dye him, this is how he's supposed to look," Naruto said tensely. _Note to self: do not insult Demon's fur color._

"Well," Sakura smiled hesitantly, "it's sort of cute…" She reached out to pet the vulpix, but Demon nipped at her fingers before Naruto could stop it. "H-hey!"

Naruto winced. "Sorry…he's not very friendly."

"Hn," Sasuke smirked. "Can't control your monster, _Dobe_?"

"I'm not a _dobe_!" Naruto protested angrily.

The Uchiha simply gave him a smug look.

"Sasuke!" Naruto growled.

"Naruto, stop picking fights with Sasuke-kun!" Sakura scolded.

Naruto pouted. "But Sakura-chan…"

"I shall go ahead to Shinobi Town," Sai abruptly decided, and headed off to the town alone.

When he was gone, Naruto looked to his two remaining classmates. "Why is Sai traveling with you guys anyways?"

"He left the same time as we did," the pink-haired girl explained with a shrug. "And it just seemed mean to leave him to journey alone… Besides, it's not like Sai is Ino-pig. Her dad made her promise to travel with Chouji and Shikamaru for at least a few months…and then I bet Mr. Yamanaka threatened those two to never let Ino out of their sights. It's perfect!" she giggled.

Naruto's shoulders slumped. Ino Yamanaka was Sakura's biggest rival for Sasuke's attention. With Ino stuck traveling with Chouji (who was slow) and Shikamaru (who was slow _and_ lazy) it was unlikely that their two traveling groups would meet often on the road. Sakura would have her precious Sasuke-kun all to herself…

"Keh, annoying," Sasuke grunted in irritation and found a tree stump several feet away to sit down on. The brooding boy then released his four minions: a charmander, a larvitar, a shinx, and a zubat. "So, _Dobe_, have you challenged the gym leader yet?"

"I took a trial run a few days ago. I'm working on my strategy for my serious attempt," Naruto replied.

Sasuke snorted. "So you lost. Figures."

"_Teme_!" Naruto growled with a glare.

"Relax, Naruto," Sakura advised as she unleashed her own fledgling monster collection: a bulbasaur, a cherubi, and a wurmple. "I'm sure that you'll do better next time; it's not like there's a limit to how many times you can challenge a gym."

Naruto sulked by the stream, dangling his fingers in the water so that Typhoon could mouth them. Shadow had curled up by his side and seemed rather intimidated by the sudden explosion of pokémon. Bolt was cautiously creeping up on Sasuke's shinx, intrigued by the other electric type but wary from its _intimidate_ ability. Demon was surprisingly still sitting in Naruto's lap, fur bristled and eying all the newcomer pokémon like they were dangerous enemies.

_She doesn't think that I can do it,_ Naruto pouted as he watched Sakura fight her girlish fear of bugs to pet her giant caterpillar. His blue eyes shifted to the Uchiha who stared into the stream and distractedly patted his charmander on the head. _He doesn't either. I'm still just the class screw-up. I bet they think that it'll take me a whole bunch of tries to get this gym's badge._

"Hey, Sasuke-kun," Sakura spoke up shyly. "Do you think that there are any nice little restaurants or parks in Shinobi Town?"

"I don't care," Sasuke grunted. "All that matters is the gym."

"I could show you around, Sakura-chan!" Naruto offered eagerly. "I've been in town for a while; I know where everything is. It'll be fun! …Just the two of us—"

"No thank you, Naruto," Sakura answered, pulling her cherubi—a cute little cherry with legs—into her lap.

"C'mon, Sakura-chan, it'll be fun!" Naruto pleaded with a grin.

"No, Naruto," Sakura repeated.

"But—"

"No means _no_," the girl cut in firmly. "If I go touring the town alone with you, you'll think it's a date, and I don't want to date you."

Naruto sighed. "…Okay."

He'd back off and wait for a while before trying again. If he kept trying, one day she'd catch on that he was loads better than gloomy, anti-social Sasuke. All he had to do was be patient.

It was so hard, though.

Bolt tried to befriend the shinx, but the black and blue pokémon had no interest in interacting with the pichu. It reminded Naruto of how he was with Sasuke. He repeatedly tried to make friends with the Uchiha boy, but Sasuke had no interest. So Naruto had decided to be Sasuke's rival…but that was going even worse than trying to be the dark-haired boy's friend.

"Well, we've got to get training!" Naruto abruptly declared. "Challenging a gym is serious business!" He waved to Sasuke and Sakura. "I'll see you guys around!"

He headed upstream, away from his old classmates. His little monster minions followed his lead, although Demon's cooperation probably had more to do with escaping the presence of so many other strange pokémon. Once he was sure that they had no audience, he got down to business.

"Okay, guys!" Naruto clapped his hands. "We've got some work to do!"

* * *

The day of his rematch at the Shinobi Town gym, Naruto found himself floundering. He _still_ had no plan for taking Kakashi down, and with his battle appointment barely an hour away, he felt smothered by desperation. So he wandered the streets aimlessly, seeking some magical inspiration.

He wasn't going to use Typhoon again. While the magikarp had gained valuable experience, he hadn't worn down the ditto like Naruto had hoped, and there was no point in wasting one of his two fighters. He didn't want to use Bolt again either. With the ditto's _limber_ neutralizing any chance for paralysis, there was no point in sending the pichu to lose again and take an even bigger hit to its morale. So that left Shadow and Demon.

Shadow would be a good first fighter. The eevee's _tail whip_ and _sand attack_ would lower the ditto's defense and accuracy and set it up for a strong possibility of defeat. But that would be useless if he couldn't get Demon to fight.

_But how do I get Demon to fight for me?_ Naruto wondered glumly. _He only seems interested in fighting __**me**__…_

So far, all attempts at training Demon had failed. Scoldings were ignored. Bribery only resulted in the fox stealing the treat. He wanted Demon to see how much better and easier things would be if the vulpix worked with him instead of against him. But there was no way that Demon would see that if he didn't play along with Naruto's commands just once.

_What am I going to do?_

"Scaredy-cat!"

Naruto paused in his walk and spotted a pair of younger boys arguing. They were brothers or friends, and they'd gotten their ball stuck up in a tree. One boy was bigger and heavier than the other, and he seemed to be trying to get his smaller companion to climb up and retrieve the ball.

"It's too high!" the smaller boy complained.

"Scaredy-cat! Scaredy-cat!" the bigger boy taunted. "If that tree could talk, it would be laughing at you!"

"I'm not a scaredy-cat!" the smaller boy protested.

"Then prove it!" the bigger boy demanded. "Go get the ball!"

The smaller boy still looked nervous about it, but determined not to be the "scaredy-cat" he carefully climbed up into the tree branches and got the ball down.

Naruto watched the scene play out and then moved on. He thought long and hard…and came to a stop as an idea hit him. And then a hopeful smile found its way onto his face.

_That just might work…_

He turned and jogged towards the gym, finally feeling ready for the fight.

* * *

When Naruto arrived at the gym, he found an unpleasant surprise waiting for him. This time he would have a small audience; Sai, Sakura, and Sasuke sat up in the bleachers. If he had to have an audience, Naruto would much rather be watched by thirty strangers than three people that he knew.

"Uh…hi," he gulped. "What brings you guys here?"

"This gym permits outside observers. We are gathering information," Sai replied.

"Seeing what _not_ to do is the best way to figure out how to win," Sasuke added with a smirk.

"Sasuke!" Naruto growled angrily, waving a fist.

"Naruto," Sakura said warningly. "Just relax and do your best. I'm sure that you'll do okay."

"You know these kids?" Tenzo asked form the crate that he sat on.

"Yeah," Naruto muttered as he took his place at his end of the battlefield. "I went to school with them."

"Ah," the older trainer nodded and went back to waiting.

Kakashi was late again. Naruto got the feeling that this was a regular occurrence as Tenzo wasn't the least bit bothered at the silver-haired man's tardiness. The young Uzumaki sighed and resigned himself to waiting.

A half an hour later, Kakashi and his faithful granbull arrived.

"Sorry I'm late," the gym leader cheerfully apologized. "I was helping an old lady cross the street when her meowth ran away and I had to go chase it down on the other side of town."

Naruto stared blankly at the man.

Tenzo muttered something under his breath that sounded like _"liar."_

"Let's get started," Kakashi smiled, removing the sphere that contained his ditto from his belt. "Have you captured any new pokémon since last time?"

"Just one," Naruto answered.

"Then the rules from before still apply." Kakashi set loose his ditto. "Pick your first battler."

Naruto set Shadow free and waited for the match to start.

Tenzo stood up from his crate, raised his hand, and chopped it down. "Begin!"

The ditto immediately transformed into a near-perfect copy of Shadow. And Shadow immediately lashed out with its first attack: stirring up the dirt floor with its tail and back feet and throwing the dust into the ditto's face. Naruto had the _sand attack_ quickly followed up with a _tail whip_, and then it was on.

For every _tackle, sand attack,_ and _tail whip_ that Shadow dished out, the ditto tried to throw right back. But as Shadow had gotten the first _sand attack_ in, the ditto's accuracy was poor and only getting worse. Copycat was tough, though, and was able to soak up the damage while still landing the occasional hit on its foe. And eventually Shadow collapsed.

_Alright,_ Naruto gulped as he pulled out Demon's ball. _Here goes nothing!_

Once the vulpix appeared, it seemed very unimpressed with its surroundings. The little fox started to lay down, the clearest sign a pokémon could give of its refusal to fight. The ditto was too busy rubbing dirt from its beady eyes to attack, let alone change forms. Naruto hurriedly put his plan into motion.

"Giving up already?" Naruto snorted. "You're scared of a ditto that can't see? Geeze, you're a wimp!"

Demon snarled at him.

"Don't get upset with me," Naruto shrugged carelessly. "I'm just calling it as I see it. You won't fight a helpless ditto, so you must be a cowardly weakling."

Demon barked something angry-sounding at him.

Tenzo jogged from his spot on the sidelines to Kakashi's end of the field. "Should I…call it?" he whispered.

"Nah," Kakashi murmured back. "There's no rule anywhere against insulting your own monster."

"Okay," Tenzo muttered and returned to his referee post.

"Copycat," Kakashi called out. "_Transform_ as soon as you can."

The ditto melted back into a blob from the eevee shape, but was still too busy trying to get the dirt from its eyes to take the form of a vulpix.

"Well," Naruto said when Demon's furious yips wound down. "If you're such hot stuff, _prove it!_ Beat this ditto and I'll take back my words."

The golden fox swiftly turned to size up its opponent. By this time, the ditto had cleared its eyes enough to see its new foe and _transform_ into a copy. Looking at the grayish false-vulpix with the ditto-esque face, Naruto saw another opportunity.

"Hey, I think that that ditto's making fun of you!" Naruto teased. "I bet it got the face wrong on purpose to make you look stupid!"

Demon bared its teeth and looked about ready to use _roar_, but with the ditto's high level it would probably fail.

"You should give it a taste of your _ember_ attack!" he suggested. "That'll teach it a lesson!"

The oddly-colored vulpix immediately sprayed the ditto with red-hot sparks of fire. The ditto squeaked in pain and retaliated with the same attack that had just been used against it. Instead of the embers doing damage to the true vulpix, it made Demon glow with a faint red aura.

It was Demon's special ability: _flash fire_. Instead of taking damage from fire attacks, which the vulpix would've been resistant to anyway was it was a fire type, the attacks were absorbed and used to boost the strength of its own fire attacks. Fire only made Demon stronger.

"I don't think that that ditto really understands your _ember_ attack," Naruto remarked with a grin. "Show it _ember_ again."

Demon lashed out with the attack once more, but the spray of embers was bigger and hotter this time.

"Copycat, wait—"

But Kakashi's warning came too late as his ditto mirrored the _ember_ again, boosting Demon's fiery aura even more.

"No more _ember_s, Copycat," Kakashi instructed. "Just dodge."

The damage was done, though. Demon's fire was even hotter and its next burst of fire left the ditto with bad burns that progressively destroyed its health. With its accuracy barely recovered and its defense still low from Shadow's earlier assault, Copycat was on the ropes.

"I think that one little _quick attack_ should finish it," Naruto commented.

Demon sprinted in close and shoulder-checked the transformed ditto. The false-vulpix went tumbling end over end, its solid form starting to melt. After the stunning blows of many _tail whip_s, Copycat really couldn't brace itself against physical attacks anymore.

"And _roar_!" Naruto commanded.

The golden vulpix let out a terrible sound and the ditto's transformation completely collapsed. Burned, beaten, and exhausted, the ditto looked like a giant, dirty wad of gum spit that had been spit onto the ground. Its last bit of fighting spirit broken by the terrifying _roar_, the ditto couldn't fight a moment longer.

"The ditto is unable to battle," Tenzo announced. "Winner: Naruto Uzumaki."

The gym leader quickly recalled the beaten ditto to its pokéball, just in case the vulpix decided to attack its defeated foe again out of spite. Naruto would've cheered and danced at his victory, but he was just so relieved that his manipulations with Demon had worked out, that all he did was grin like an idiot. With the rush of battle over, the heat of Demon's _flash fire_ began to bleed off into the cool air of the gym, and the vulpix realized that it had been tricked.

"Congratulations," Kakashi smiled. "You won."

Demon turned and hissed and Naruto, its breath shimmering with heat.

"Hey, you beat the ditto!" Naruto grinned at the fox. "So I take back my words. You are now a cowardly weakling. You kicked butt!"

The vulpix hesitated, cocked its head as if confused, and then turned away from Naruto sulkily.

Kakashi Hatake strolled across the dusty battlefield and, upon reaching Naruto, passed the boy a circular metal pin with a tiny mirror set into it. "As proof of your victory, here is the Copy badge. Don't lose it now."

Naruto admired the silvery little pin with wide eyes. Two more of these tokens and his trainer's license would be permanent and secure. And a minimum of eight would qualify him for competition in all but the highest level pokémon league tournaments.

Achieving that level of skill and respect was his goal. He wouldn't be the class idiot with no father anymore. He would be a master-level trainer and maybe even the next League Champion of the Land of Fire.

Naruto pinned the badge to the inside of his black vest and grinned slightly.

_One down, seven to go…_

* * *

"You told him where to find that eevee, didn't you Sempai."

Kakashi scratched Pakkun behind the granbull's floppy ear and eyed his younger friend. "So what?"

"Since when do you give challenging trainers tips on where to find rare pokémon?" Tenzo asked as he polished the brightly-colored stone body of his sudowoodo. "Is it because you knew the kid's mother?"

"Hmm…" Kakashi closed his right eye and fingered the eye-patch that covered his left. "I know both of his parents. I learned a lot from them. I feel like…I owe them."

"Owe them for what?" Tenzo inquired.

Kakashi lazily opened his eye and stared out the window at the deepening night sky. "Wouldn't you like to know…"


End file.
